Sunlight in his Hair
by zunmo
Summary: Riza left them alone on those hot days in the summertime so that they could lie together in peace. Roy tells Edward about something in his past he'd really rather not. Roy/Ed, very light slash. Dreamy. I dunno, I've been reading Francesca Lia Block lately


AN: Yeah… most of this was written very late at night

AN: Yeah… most of this was written very late at night. I dunno, I was feeling…. August-y. Slash. Just a few kisses. Roy/Ed with mentions of Roy/Hughes.

Inspired by the summary of a narusasu fic I never ended up reading. Why yes, I'm very cool.

Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist belongs to…. not… me?

**BREAK**

_'You know,' _Says Roy one of those summer afternoons when Ed is in town and Riza is off into the city on a long lunch break, dog at her heels. It's one of those days when it feels as though the sun has decided to take a rest and the clouds are away visiting family- soft and dry and warm. These are Ed's favorite days of summer, the lazy days, the dog days, as his mother used to call them so long ago, the days when he can pretend everything's not already gone terribly wrong. Riza is gone, and Roy and Ed are stretched out together on the couch in Roy's office, skin touching skin where uniform doesn't touch clothing.

_'You know,'_ he says, and rubs the hem of Ed's shirt between his fingers- no gloves on, it's too hot, even if he is a paranoid bastard. _'You're the only one who's ever given me… you know, I have this funny feeling. In the pit of my stomach.'_

Ed looks up at him, and he has something pretty on his lips and his eyelids have started to droop, but Roy knows he's still awake, still knows what he's saying.

_'Mmmmm?' _Hums Edward against the fingers that have found their way up to cup his cheek, then touch the pretty thing on his lips. _'What kind of funny feeling?' _He kisses a fingertip, just a little.

_'You know…' _Roy says again. _'In the films and books and things they call it… err… moths?_' He trails his fingers over a nose tanned golden by the sun and up the brow to tangle just slightly in golden fringe. He leans down, pulling Ed up to him, and kisses him.

Ed is quiet for a minute. _'I give you butterflies?' _Roy smiles and nods against his forehead, still touching his. Ed lies back down and a tiny little frown creases his lips.

_'How many?' _He asks.

_'Millions of tiny things with wings flopping around in my stomach.' _Roy takes Ed's automail arm and brings it up close to his face, then holds it away, examining it, almost seeming like he wants to absorb every cog and scrape and plate into his eyes. He picks up the other arm and does the same, now trying to memorize every freckle and cell.

_'No,' _Ed says slowly, looking up at Roy with his eyes wide open, now, and asking him a question. _'How many others were there. Before me.'_

Roy is silent. He's brought Edwards flesh arm up, pinning the elbow to his chest and letting the forearm snake up his neck so the hand can cup his cheek. The hand keeps him from turning away, and as much as Roy wants to turn away and pretend Ed never asked, he's looking into his eyes and there's something that's frighteningly intangible and pained and waiting there. There are no words for this, and that's really how it should be, and Roy knows he has to start talking soon or something might pop out of place in one of their hearts.

_'A lot.' _He finally says, and Ed's hand moves up to cup his ear in a gesture that isn't understanding, but isn't telling him to stop either. _'None o f the, were- none of them were really mine. It was just… they were… I was trying to fill something and it wasn't working, and so I just kept powering on, trying so hard, so hard, but nothing was… nothing was… it wasn't you, Edward. There was one, but she was… a subordinate, but I had known her for so long, and she really seemed to love me… I didn't… I never…'_

He trails off and Ed is looking up at him, still with those eyes, but now they're saying that he almost expected it.

Roy brushes his fingers over the bristly and of Ed's braid, imagining for a second that he's holding sunlight in his fingers. He drops his hand to fit it onto Ed's neck, caressing the space between his shoulder and jaw.

_'I didn't know most of their names.' _He breathes, placing his head on the other shoulder, turning it so that he's speaking into Ed's neck. He's lying on top of him now, legs stretched out touching the back of the couch with his chest over the smaller mans and his free hand wrapping around his waist to come up and meet his shoulder blade.

_'A lot of them were phone numbers. Letters. Aliases. I can't tell you how many women think they're being clever and sneaking, cheating on their husbands with fake names like Scarlet or Lola. __The Scarlet Letter__. __Lolita_._'_ He tosses of the names of books Ed will never read in an English classroom and then have to complete boring essays and character studies for, but he probably did.

_'I actually think a lot of them were married. At least some of them definitely were. You know how I usually am about hat sort of stuff, but for a while… I was so… I felt so alone. Everything felt dark and empty and the only thing keeping me going was reaching higher and higher. The only thing was, once I got to the higher place, I still didn't feel like it was enough. '_

He stops for a moment.

_'One of them… she was just… stunning. I didn't know how the hell I had her when I was such a… she was gorgeous. I had known her… we were subordinates. She was just stunning… nowhere near as stupid as all the others. She loved me. Even before she said, I could tell, and I thought for a split second that maybe if I tried hard enough, maybe… I could too. I thought if I tried hard enough, I could… I don't know. I was being stupid. She was never…'_

He trails off. Ed looks sad. Roy can't see his face, but he knows, he can almost feel it and it breaks his heart. He kisses the corner of Roy's mouth, straining his neck and lifting the others head just a little. He lets Roy settle himself back over his body, both of them splayed out and just touching on that day in august, when the sun had sucked all the water out of the air and dust motes floated like so many tiny birds through the sunbeams filtering through Roys grand windows.

_'You mean he.' _ He whispers, and his lips brush Roy's ear, muscle to cartilage.

Roy can't deny it, and that almost makes him cry. Now that he's so long dead, Roy can't help but wonder every day if he could have loved Maes if he'd only tried a little harder.

_'By the… by the time I thought I might try to make something out of that promise he made to me, the promise that he would always love me and I could always always come back to him no matter what, he was married and his wife was five months pregnant with the little girl he would always love more than anything. I was just so tired. So tired of being alone and only having "congrats" from my subordinates when I went another step up the rung instead of someone who was actually happy for me. But it was never really going to happen. The promise had vanished as soon as he met Gracia. I missed the boat, and I can't say I have any regrets other than that I never told him I was sorry.'_

Edward is quiet for a few more minutes and Roy waits with bated breath. Then he says something that makes Roy want to cry out.

_'I forgive you.' _

Roys eyes start to feel prickly and wet and he imagines then filling up with tears at the bottom, like in those girly comic books Riza keeps a secret stash of in her desk. He feels strangely squishy all of a sudden and wraps his arms all the way around Ed so they encircle his waist and come up to meet at his shoulder blades.

_'I had two.' _Says Ed, but Roy doesn't care like he thinks he might another time. _"Petite, long dark hair, both girls. They were more into the idea of dating the Fullmetal Alchemist than they were into dating Edward Elric. I dumped them pretty fast.' _

Roy sighs and ghosts a kiss at the junction between Eds shoulder and neck, and the sunlight filters trough the windows and dust to make patterns on his uniformed back, and before the 'I love you' is out of his moth Edward is kissing him.

Riza leaves them alone on these days because she sees the tragedy in the them- how Roy is so much older than Ed, how they both have important military jobs (jobs that could turn them into killing machines any second), how many people would twist away in disgust if they knew, how broken they both are.

What Riza Hawkeye doesn't see is the way the sunlight bounces off of and weaves into Eds hair, and how it glints off of Roys as they lock themselves into a familiar embrace.

_'I love you…'_


End file.
